A few weeks ago I was honored when my buddy Sachin asked me to pace him at the Headlands Hundred. Here I will write down my account of what transpired.
Headlands was not Sachin's first choice of the hundred mile mountain race that he wanted to prepare for this year. He is a goal oriented dude that when he sets his mind to something he is very meticulous and focused in every step of the process. He was originally training to complete a race called the Fatdog 120, a 120 mile race in a real alpine environment in Canada. That race got canceled at the last minute because of forest fires. He had already done all of the training, spent all of the money (including investing in an altitude tent to help him acclimate to the elevation), so the cancellation understandably came as a blow. He decided that all of that investment shouldn't be wasted though and decided to find a replacement race. Headlands fit the bill with it being a local hilly race with pretty straight forward logistics. The race would not however test his mettle with respect to technical mountain trails at elevation - but his fitness and mental resolve would still be put on the line.
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I got to sleep in, make coffee, read my book, generally just chill out, and then drive up across the Golden Gate bridge to hang out on a beautiful sunny day at the beach before expecting Sachin somewhere after 4 p.m. at the 50 mile mark of the race. |
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| Sachin - all smiles and high fives at the 50 mile mark. |
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| Sachin was somehow able to convince his girlfriend Kate to drop him off at the race, drive around the headlands for 20 hours following him around and catering to his every need at every aid station (mixing drinks, wardrobe changes, gear exchanges, etc), driving around his stinky pacers, and then drove him home. Something tells me he owes her one or a lot. |
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| In stark contrast to last years race, there was hardly a cloud in the sky and the runners were fully exposed to the sun pretty much the whole day. That took its toll on the runners! Sachin was however able to take pretty good care of himself, and ran some really well paced loops, never burning himself up. This discipline really helped him cash in once the temperatures started dropping. |
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| The best thing about this years weather was the fact that the views were amazing. |
Sachin came into the 50 mile aid station in fifth place. He ran the first lap in 4:45 and the second in just over 5 hours, staying steady. The leader of the race at the time, John Burton (who I've paced at a couple of races now) decided to withdraw. Then Sachin started to methodically catch the other racers in front of him because they were starting to slow down, while Sachin was holding steady at his 5 hr per lap pace. I should note that most every runner in ultra-running, especially at the longer distances (100k, 100 mile, etc) slow down as the race progresses - something that is known as a "positive split". It is so hard to fend off muscle and brain fatigue when you are talking about those kinds of distances. Sachin was somehow able to keep things even.
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| This was the moment that Sachin was about to take the lead of the race from Mike (guy I don't know) at about mile 62. After we put some distance on Mike, Sachin was explaining to me that this leading a race thing was pretty stressful. He did not like the idea of having to worry about everyone chasing him for 40 miles! |
After Sachin took the lead we headed down into the Tennessee Valley aid station (kind of the main hub of aid stations where the race passes through multiple times). Many of the volunteers were super excited about helping out the new race leader. The funny thing was that many of the volunteers remembered me from last year (I take pride in thanking the volunteers and joking around and trying to have fun). As we were leaving the aid station they were all cheering for me doing an awesome pacing job. As we headed up the next hill, I was joking with Sachin about how I was getting more love than he was...
From the moment Sachin took the lead it was basically my job to try and get him to relax a little because this leading a race thing seemed to be rattling him a little bit. He kept second guessing his pacing, nutrition, etc. I told him to just keep doing what he was doing. That was all he had to do.
There are a lot of out and backs on this course where you are able to get an idea of where your competitors are at with respect to you, so you can tell how much you might be able to relax or push depending on what you are trying to accomplish. The tricky thing is that there are several different races going on at the same time and sometimes it is hard to keep track of who is running what race and who your competitors are. Especially in the dark. Sachin was relying on me to give him information on where everyone was - but I was doing a piss poor job. I guess I wasn't super excited about that part of my job because in my mind it just didn't matter where the other guys were at. There would be nothing good that would come of Sachin getting this information. Either the guys are catching him - in which case he might try to speed up and burn himself up just trying to keep the lead, or Sachin was creating a larger gap - in which case maybe he could relax a little and make sure to take care of himself and just finish the race. Personally I like the idea of keeping him a little bit on edge so he would stay in the zone. That zone was paying off handsomely for him. He was entirely focused. He was in and out of aid stations without wasting any time. He peed while hiking. He was relentless. He thought about every way that he could save time and be efficient.
As we crested the hill at about mile 78, he was totally convinced that the headlight that he saw behind us was someone that was about to catch him. I said yeah, maybe - doesn't matter, just keep doing what you're doing. He then proceeded to drop some insane downhill miles down to the golden gate bridge. I was barely keeping up with him. As we got to the aid station at the bottom (with me huffing and puffing), I turned to Kate and Sachin's buddy Matt who was able to help out with crewing duties last minute and I told him that if Sachin throws down another downhill like he just did that I was tapping out and Matt would have to take over. He said he was ready to go.
Sachin and I started heading back up the hill and since this was an out and back section we had a chance to really scope out second place. It took us a while before we ran into someone that we thought might be in his race. I estimated maybe a 20 to 30 minute lead. Sachin was worried. I decided to do the math for him to try to relieve him of some of this crazy paranoia he was going through. Basically the chaser would have to average over a minute per mile faster pace than Sachin to catch him. When we crested the next hill, Sachin decided to drop some seven minute miles down to the next aid station - I couldn't believe it. Your quadriceps just shouldn't be working that well at mile 87 of a hundred mile mountain race! When we rolled into the aid station I tagged Matt in to get Sachin to the finish line - I was toast.
I caught a ride with Kate to the rest of the aid stations to track his progress and then watch him and Matt roll into the finish line for the win in a time of 19 hours and 56 minutes - the eighth fastest time in race history. Before the race Sachin had communicated an "A" goal of sub 22 hours and a B goal of sub 24. I'm not sure if he really believed he was capable of achieving what he was able to set out and do, but it was one of the coolest things to get a front row seat to: To witness someone totally nail their race and in the process blow everyone's expectations (maybe even including his own). I'm just glad he allowed me to be a part of it!
